Wow! Blog awards x 2!!! =D

Yes thats right, I have been offered 2 blog awards over this weekend! Such a wonderful suprise!

The 1st is the Liebster blog award! This was given to me by Redsmudge, the lovely Clare! Go visit her fab blog here! =D

This award is aimed at bringing unknown good blogs to light, (so you are asked; please don't tag somebody who already has a ton of followers) and in accepting the award I have had to agree to the following conditions:

1. You have been tagged, do you want to accept? - Yes, thanks so much, I am thrilled!
2. Then create a post on your blog and post the love blog photo. Done!
3. Link back to the person who gave you the award and say if you accept. Also done & yes please I accept!
4. Choose 3-5 of your favorite blogs to tag, link these in your post too and tell the lucky people they have been tagged. Yep done that too!

So here are my chosen 5, mostly from DC, as that is where I spend most of my time and have made my first blog friends!

1. Skated, Kate, a lovely and talented lady & fellow DC member. Go visit her blog here!

2. Incy, Kay, a frequent DC poster, very friendly and I'm excitedly following her new adventures with SCAL! Stop by her bog here!

3. Laineymo, frequent host of the FF challenges over at DC that I love to take part in! I love her layouts and style! Check out her blog here!

4. Jules, a DT member for Funky Hand, obviously I'm a new follower of her gorgeous blog but I love her work! She is running the FH challenge right now too so I must get working on my entry!

5. Kathy, Katalytic, another new blogger who found my blog via DC and I'm glad she did as her work is gorgeous! Find here blog here!

Will be back with my 2nd award later as just seen the time and must dash off to work, boo!!! :(

Oh My Crafts! - Demo Event. =D

Just a quick post for today and no crafty project as such, just crafty name dropping lol! ;)

I had such a fun evening yesterday; myself and my crafty friend attended a demo evening hosted by Oh My Crafts! Yes Kevin & Tony from the actual US company are over here doing a few small demo events using vinyl and glass etching cream.
It was fab, although I had the misfortune of getting picked on to help out in one of the demos lol; not really misfortune at all, it was a bit embarrassing but good fun!
I'll upload a pic later of 2 little coasters we made using the vinyl. Happy Ni! :)

Twisted Double Easel Card - Mini Tutorial!

Hi, thanks for stopping by!
This is my first tutorial post and its really only a mini one as it is condensed but hopefully it will help at least one person if they are wondering how to make this style of card! :)

These are my new favourite style of card at the moment and really simple to make:

You need to start with a square piece of card. Mine was 21cm x 21cm which folds to make a DL card size - so you can use a DL card blank and easily find an envelope to fit it in! :)

Fold the square in half and make a cut from the middle of the fold (thats 10.5cm along) down to the bottom edge of the card.

Score from the middle of the fold (same point that you made your cut from) on a diagonal angle down to the bottom corners of the card and then mountain fold all the score lines to give you this:

Next cut 2 topper squares of card at 10.5cm x 10.5cm and attach to the front triangles on the base card. Remember, only stick the squares to the two 'inner' triangles on your base card or it wont fold and work as an easel. I made a note of where to put the glue in the pic above so I dont forget!

Lastly, make a stopper however you wish, mounted onto foam pads to lean the topper squares against.

I used two circles on the FH challenge entry in my last post and the one below is just a strip of card that I decorated with a border punch.

That's it, card base complete! Told you it was simple! :)

***

Here is another double easel card I recently created for two DC challenges so you can see a finished sample:

This was for the:

* The ABC Colour Challenge 'J', colours Jet Black and Jasmine Yellow.

* Clare Curd's Weekly Sketch Challenge.

Hope the tutorial is ok, any comments/friendly criticsms welcome!

Thanks for stopping by! Ni x

My 1st 'Get Funky!' Challenge - Yay! :)

Well I said I had another Challenge project to share and so without further ado... this is it! :)

It's a special one as this is my first submission for a Get Funky! challenge. Although I love the Funky Hand cd roms that I have I couldn't take part until I started my blog - woo!
This months challenge was Going Round In Circles (see challenge here!) and Anice offered a freebie backing paper download on the Funky Hand website.

I though the paper would make a fab base for my double easel card (my 1st go at this technique also!) and I punched out two circles from the sheet of paper, mounted on foam pads, to use as the stoppers.
The sentiment is sizzix, the scallop circle a nestie, the large butterfly a DC die and I have no idea where the mini punch for the other butterflies came from lol!

The jar is so inkeeping with the theme as the whole thing is decorated with circles! :)
Again using nesties I cut the two patterned paper circles and layered up with a scalloped circle in between. On the top to finish it off is a large green brad and a clear gem.
To jazz the sides of the jar up a bit and use up the odd leftover circles from my A4 sheet I used a circle punch to cut the shapes and then added ribbon between two back-to-back circles and fixed it over the wire closure for detail.

I'm so pleased with how both of these came out, fab new card technique and, although it was meant to be a gift jar to go with the thank you card, I'm going to have to make another one as this one now lives on my crafty shelves filled with my favourite type of cakey/biscuit snack!!!
TFL. :) x

Quick Cricut Cards!

Oh dear, too much time has passed yet again in between posts for my liking! Just never seem to have enough time to sit and focus on writing, maybe I should waffle less, lol!

However I am pleased to say that I have been crafting a bit! 2 quick cards follow today using my still so very new cricut! & I have 2 challenge projects ready to share, with another in progress! :)

Here is the first card,

A really simple card made using a phrase and its' shadow from Paper Lace in the local football team's colours and some peel-offs stuck onto shiny white card and cut out, then layered onto foam pads!

Next up is this pretty girlie card:

Again made using Paper Lace but just the font function this time to spell the name. Clear embossed the tiny flowers (from the DC freebie cupcake set!) and added a few gems, ribbon and a 'fake' bow! Love it!

So that's it, 2 really quick simple cards, but each perfect for the recipient IMHO and I hope they like them! :) x